Cuba fell into island-wide power outage: NPR

MEXICO CITY — Cuba’s power grid shut down on Friday, knocking out power to the entire country.

The massive outage left 10 million people on the Caribbean island without power.

One of the country’s largest power plants, the Antonio Guiteras Power Plant in the western province of Matanzas, broke down shortly before midday on Friday. The failure led to a complete collapse of Cuba’s electrical system.

The power outage comes next Days of rolling blackouts.

prime minister of cuba, Manuel Marrero CruzHe blamed the problem on deteriorating infrastructure and fuel shortages exacerbated by Hurricane Milton, which made it difficult for fuel shipments to reach the island.

The Prime Minister delivered a speech on state television on Thursday evening and said that the government would give priority to providing electricity to residential areas and promised that fuel shipments would arrive on the island in the coming days.

He said: “We have to say with all transparency that we had to paralyze all the basic entities of the economy to provide the minimum amount of electricity to the population.” This has led to the closure of public schools until Monday and all state institutions and industries. Unless they provide “vital” services.

Cuban officials have not set a timetable for when the electricity grid will return to operation again. The massive power outage marks a new low in a country already dealing with a deepening economic crisis and widespread food shortages.